The York Centre for Print: Thin Ice Press

The York Centre for Print works to secure the future of traditional printing, not just preserving the past but bringing it to life. This superbly-equipped pressroom, museum and gallery is located in St Anthony’s Garden and overlooked by York’s city walls. In 2017, an on-campus letterpress teaching and research studio was founded at the University of York. Next came StreetLife: an ambitious project that brought traditional printing back to York’s busiest highstreet.

In 2024, Thin Ice Press: the York Centre for Print was launched at a permanent home in the heart of the city. Anyone can visit the city-centre location to explore the shop, gallery and take a tour. People join as members to use the studio, and workshops, away days and bespoke tuition are offered for complete beginners to advanced printers of all needs, abilities and ages. The team are passionate about research, and facilitate practice-led learning, interpretation and communication. They also offer support for small to medium creative enterprises to get hands-on with print, and historical consultancy and opportunities for filming historic equipment in a beautiful setting.

Presses include:

• A large Albion and an 1845 Crown Columbian press;

• Five powered proofing presses; and

• A number of tabletop clamshell platen presses.

The equipment available facilitates bookbinding and lively Risograph and linocut printing clubs. It is home to 115 cases of wood type produced by Joyce & Co, originally owned by the Orphans Printing Press in Leominster, and 100 cases of metal type. The Center has also created a new home in York for key elements of the DeLittle collection, including an office that once sat in the corner of the factory and a unique pantograph. DeLittle of York was one of only a few wood letter manufacturers in the UK; it became the most successful and survived the longest. When the firm finally closed its doors in the 1990s, much of the DeLittle collection went to The Type Archive in London, which had a mission to preserve the machinery and skills of type manufacture and printing in the UK. Sadly, The Type Archive has now closed, but staff at the Centre have the privilege of being entrusted with some part of DeLittle and The Type Archive’s legacy, and are working with other museums of printing and York Explore Libraries and Archives to preserve and showcase this element of York’s printing history.